Ski jumping: Olympic peccary Eisenbichler second in Lahti

Olympic champion Andreas Wellinger misses the podium at the Ski Jumping World Cup in Lahti, but Pyeongchang-Pechvogel Markus Eisenbichler achieves his best career result at the triumph Kamil Stochs.

Inconsolable in Pyeongchang, overjoyed in Lahti: Of all places Markus Eisenbichler and not gold boy Andreas Wellinger flew to the podium at the first ski jumping world cup after the winter games. In Lahti, Eisenbichler only had to admit defeat to the outstanding Polish rider Kamil Stoch one day after winning the team jumping championship. For Wellinger it was only eighth place.

“I’m so happy, that’s so schee”, Eisenbichler said in broad Bavarian and with tears in his eyes on ARD:”I just want to enjoy it now” In Pyeongchang the 26-year-old had been ousted from the German team by Stephan Leyhe and had missed silver.

Wellinger, the most successful ski jumper at the Olympics with gold and two silver medals, was delighted with his buddy, who walked forward in the second round from seventh place.”That’s great for the Eisei, he deserved it so much,”said Wellinger, who lost four places with a weak second jump:”He didn’t work out as I had imagined”.

Winner Stoch, on the other hand, played in his own league. In his first win of the season outside the Four Hills Tournament, the Pole jumped in his own league and with 314.2 points (132.0+134.0 m) he had a huge advantage over Eisenbichler (286.0) who had won the World Cup bronze medal in Lahti in 2017. The third place was only one tenth of a point behind Eisenbichler of the Austrian Stefan Kraft, the double world champion of Lahti.

Richard Freitag only made 15th place in the overall World Cup and lost a lot of ground on Stoch:”It’s just a bit difficult for me at the moment, I don’t find the flow quite so much,”said Freitag, the decisive jumper of the first weeks of the season.

Stoch now leads with 963 points clearly ahead of Friday (836) and Wellinger (768),”Stoch has clearly shown that he wants to win the World Cup. But we won’t give it to them,”said national coach Werner Schuster.

Karl Geiger, who jumped on the podium for the only time in 2016 in Lahti from the normal hill as runner-up, came in ninth place on Sunday. Leyhe, who had ousted Eisenbichler from the Olympic silver team, finished in 20th place.

In the team competition on Saturday Wellinger, Freitag, Geiger and Eisenbichler had left both World Champion Poland (2nd) and Olympic Champion Norway (3rd) behind.

“We’re very happy. I was hoping things were going well,”said Schuster:”We’re well positioned, the boys jumped well.”